ESRB Changing Ratings

ESRB Changing Ratings

WTF? First GTA: San Andreas, now TES: Oblivion. The ESRB is setting a bad example for themselves here. I don't know if they are walking around on eggshells because of political reasons, or if they truly feel that they screwed up on the original rating for these games. Changing the rating of a game based on a modification is un-ethical, and preposterous.

If the ESRB had done this many years ago we would not have a creative mod community of which many wonderful (and not so wonderful) things have come from. PC gaming would be pretty boring if not for user created content, including hacks. What if Bathesda and Rockstar had put a descriptor on the box, similar to the ones used for explaining that content may change when playing online, that says content may vary based on user modification? Would the ESRB have been able to change their rating then?

This rating change only seems to happen to something that is more publicized than others. I know as well as many of you, that there are millions of mods available on the internet for your gaming pleasure. There has been for a long time. I remember many years ago when the Crackwhore was released for Quake II and the many user created skins that came after id released her. The ESRB didn't notice that, probably because they were not playing online as much as some of us were. Of course they may have noticed now since the games industry is much more scrutinized than it was then by the government and the media. I imagine if 1up hadn't posted the news story and video about the Oblivion mod, this may not have happened. Or it could have since many gaming news sites posted the info. But they should all be allowed to do this without fear of an established reputible ratings board changing their mind because they heard the game could be made naughty. I know many gamers love to mess with the games they play, that is why this community of modders is so big, but also gamers love to situate game characters in compromising ways for fun. When you are given a world with a character and control over the camera, things can happen. All of these things happen because it is fun, not because it is dirty.

If the ESRB thinks it has to incorporate these variables into the rating it gives, then they are destined to fail. This is a bad time for them to be going this direction. We need them to be strong, and have a limit to what they can do or else the government will prevail and take over the responsibility as they have been threatening to for some time.

As always, let me know your thoughts. This is very troublesome and hopefully not how things will be going as the industry grows. Thanks for you time!

Comments (3)

I agree with your stand on modding..

But I think this case is different. All this mod does is remove the clothing from the characters. The naked skins came with the game. They weren't created by the user. Since the skins came with the game, and can be accessed by the user (albeit, not every gamer will know how to, or want to), the ESRB should be able to change the rating because it is actual content in the game. The ESRB will never change the rating of Tomb Raider because someone made Nuddie Raider. Besides, I think ESRB is inclined to do something like this because they got a lot of heat from special interest groups for not rating the game appropriately.

It sucks that the ESRB sways with public opinion, but the ESRB is here for the public, not the gamers. Parents of gamers (or funcking politicians that have it out for video games) care the most about ratings, and any ammo that they can get their hands on will end up hurting gaming.

I think the ESRB is trying to good for the gaming public. The real problem lies our society. People go nuts when it becomes apparent that our youth has access to digital boobies. And as a result of Hot Coffee, the ESRB knows this all too well.

I respectfully disagree

The ESRB is there for parents. Their job is to provide parents with a reliable indication of the content of the game, so parents can make a decision about whether their children should be playing it. Whether or not Bethesda intended for anyone to see the nakedness, it is there, and people can see it. Parents should know that.

Over half the gamers in America are over the age of 18, and many parents won't care about the M rating anyway, so I question whether or not this rating change will have much impact. Lots of games with M ratings have been huge hits.

I want games to be as diverse as movies. I want there to be games that explore adult themes, that have intense action that isn't appropriate for kids, that give me thrills I haven't experienced. But I also want to be able to control what my kids play. I don't want them exposed to stuff that is too scary, or explores stuff that they are too young to fully understand so that they don't take the wrong message from it. I think the ESRB did exactly the right thing here.